Renate, my friend the artist!

This is a picture that Renate painted for me.  It is beautiful, but sadly the overhead lights are reflected in the glass.  (Nobody ever accused me of being a photographer.)  But just look at this picture.  It is beautiful.  I never knew her to paint.  When we were kicking around we were both into writing.  Apparently she got a wild hair at some time and tried her hand at painting.  Now, while I am not schooled in the fine art of painting, this appeals to me and makes me feel that I am right there  on the lake and it even makes me feel a little cold.  She has a desire to paint pictures and sell them, which I am thinking she should be able to do.  Maybe some day I will be able to introduce her to my friends as  "Renate Tursi, the accomplished artist who lives in that great big house on the hill that she paid for with her paintings money".

I have never had an artistic bone in my body and my talents are mostly the written word, but some times I like to cook and bake new things.  Today I made pecan bars and that was a mistake.  See, there is no one here but me and this was a pan 13" x 9" and the bars are about 1 inch tall.  So I called Ross over and he ate one and took 2 home, but that still leaves a lot in the pan.  Bret should wander in later, but he is not a big sweet eater and these things are very sweet.

  

Well, let me tell you something about baking.  It is rather hard to bake anything that is not loaded with calories.  First you have the flour, then the sugar, and the butter and then the good Lord deems that it must all be held down with frosting, which is just a different kind of sugar.  I can make noodles, but there again, starch, starch, starch.  

And now guess what?  I am sleepy so I guess I will call this finished and head off to bed.  I know there is no lesson learned today and I have not touched your soul, but just know that sometimes I just need to type something that means nothing and teaches no lessons.  Mostly I guess, I just wanted you to see the picture Renate painted for me and to know that is is so nice to have my friend back in my life even under the worst of circumstances. We are not the same people we were  10 years ago, but we have a history and that history will work to make us better people.

Good night, Renate!  Tell the dogs I am coming soon!

 

Time just keeps right on marching.

 Funny, I thought the world had stopped, but it has not.  It has been 2 weeks today since my life was altered by circumstances far beyond my control, and yet so close to my grasp.  When I say life is funny, I do not mean it in the literal sense.  It is funny in the way that we really think we matter and that we have any control at all over the events that transpire and pull us into a web that is intricately woven by some unseen hand.  The house I used to enjoy going to on Sunday after church is empty and a realtor placed a sign in front of it.  I will not drive by to see if anyone lives there, nor to see if the broken limb has fallen to the street below.

When I pass by the reservoir, I will remember the afternoon we went hiking and I will smile.  When I   drive  down Pueblo Boulevard past Minnequa Lake, I will remember the 3 of us trying to get a small kite into the air and  I will smile. When I go to Sam's club I will remember that he used to buy me a juice called Naked because it had no additives. 

"Hey, Lou!  I got you Naked!"  " Oh, Anthony, I sure hope that is in  a bottle".

Little things that meant nothing now mean so much.  It is almost 6:32, the time my phone pinged that I had a message; the last message I would ever receive from that number.

Yes, life goes on whether we want it to or not.  God is still in his heaven and I still trust him with my life.  I do not know his plan, but I am sure he has one.  Nothing is random and God will never give me more than I can carry.  This I know is true.  And there is one more thing I know that I tend to forget and that is this:  "God never closes a door without opening a window."

Right now I do not know where the window is, but I am sure I will find it and it will lead to peace.  That is how my God rolls!

OMG! It's a YAK!!!

 I can never think of my friend Renate without those words popping into my head.  There are words that could manifest there, such as friend, kind, compassionate, funny, dependable and even sucker, but Yak is the one that is in the fore front of my mind.  And "Yak" is followed by gales of laughter.

Renate is coming today.  I wrote about our reconnecting yesterday or the day before.  I have lost all track of time when it comes to days of the week and I consider it a major accomplishment to know that today is December 4 and it is Friday.  To be honest somebody told me.  My youngest son lives with me and he reminded me that today is Friday and Renate is coming.  And I told him the Yak story before he left for work and he gave me the "poor delusional momma" look as he left.  But I was victorious because I now knew for sure what day it was and that Renate was coming today.  I think it has been close to 10 years since I seen her.

My last memory of her was a trip up to Beulah with her dad and step mom.  Renate and I were in the front seat and she was driving.  Dale Tursi and his wife Val  were in the back seat enjoying the scenery.  We were talking about meaningless things that had transpired the previous week.  We were on our way to Beulah where we planned a drive through the mountains and stopping some where to partake of what ever was in the picnic basket she had packed.  

Since the scenery rarely changes we were just talking and not really paying attention when suddenly about halfway up the drive we both caught sight of animals in a field where cattle belonged.  The cattle had always been there and now we both stared in amazement at 8 or 9 black very strange looking animals which could have been cattle had they not had long hair.  

The words that came out of both our mouths at the same exact time were "What the hell!?  YAKS!!!  Those are Yaks!"  It was so ludicrous that we then dissolved into gales of laughter.  Renate parked and Dale and Val were in a state of confusion.  

Renate pointed at the Yaks and explained.  "Look!  (pause)  Yaks!  I thought they could only live in cold climates!"

I am not sure why, but they were not nearly as amazed as Renate and I by the sight.  They sort of looked at us and shook there heads.  We then continued our day, but I am willing to bet that when Renate reads this she is going to be taken back to that day and she and I are going to have a very good laugh.  

Some things can only be remembered by the people who were there and while I have since learned Yaks can live in Colorado, I have never seen one.  

Renate is my friend.  My mother once told me these words "If you can reach the end of your life and count your true friends on one hand, you are blessed."  And as I set here, I think of many people who have been my friend over the years.  God has blessed me with many friends through the years, but when I follow her criteria, I see she is right.  

On one hand I can count 5 friends.  Only 5 that I consider true friends.  A true friend is one that keeps my confidences.  One who knows my deepest secrets, but never finds a need to discuss them.  Renate is one of them.

So lunch today and who knows what tomorrow may bring.  Life gives us little twists and turns, but always seems to lead us where we need to be.  I am looking to have a beautiful reunion with my friend and hopefully in this drab world we are currently in we can find a little laughter, God willing.

When God closes a door, he opens a window.

 I have always known this to be true although I also tend to forget it a lot.  I need to lay the back drop for this story first.  30 years ago I began working with AIDS patients as a care giver and personal companion.  The epidemic was in full swing back then and a lot of people were worried about "catching it", so people who did my line of work were in great demand.  But this is about a friendship forged in the midst of sickness and dying buffered by an underlying hope for a cure.  Sadly there was not a miracle cure discovered, but there was medicine discovered that could suppress the virus and allow people to live fairly normal lives, but that is history and this blog is about a friendship.

While I worked in the field with the clients, my friend was a case manager.  She dealt with them in their medical care and financial needs.  I helped them with house work, laundry, cooking, shopping, banking and that sort of stuff.  I also tried to give them avenues of entertainment including walks in the park, picnics and  and stuff like that.  Since there was a stigma connected to them at the time my job description changed almost daily.  I was whatever I needed to be at any given time for any reason.  And always in the background was Renate.  What did I need?  How could she help?  Always a phone call away.

In our line of work at that time there were frequent deaths.  It was a scary time for us as well as the clients.  Science was working overtime to conquer this plague and all we could do was try to help where and when we could. We started social events to try to have some sort of normalcy.  We started World AIDS  Day and made an AIDS Quilt.  We were marking time and eventually it paid off.  The community learned that AIDS was a manageable medical condition and it was spread by love.  Safe sex became our mantra, and now many years later, it has paid off and we can teach safe sex.

  I eventually left the client base because they did not need me any more.  I went to volunteer at hospice and Renate retired to live her idyllic life with the man she loved. Renate and I drifted apart after she retired.   But life is cruel. I knew she moved to Fowler and now had a life partner, but that was all I knew.  And now all these years later, the circle has reconnected and we have made contact again.  Her life has changed and mine has changed.  She is a widow and I just lost my Anthony.  She will be here tomorrow!  She thinks she can still find my house, but we will see.  The neighborhood has changed and time has passed.  We will see.

So, today I am going to make cookies or cinnamon rolls for my friend.  It seems strange to say the word "friend" in connection with some one I have not seen in many years, but some bonds are never broken and when people fight for a cause that is right and just, they remain friends forever.  

It will be nice to see her and  I am going to hug her so tight she can not get loose!  And we will cry over Jim and Anthony, and laugh over Mark and Allen and all the clients of long ago.  And when she leaves we will make a vow to never be seperated like this again and maybe this time it will work.  I just know this, the Lord works in wonderous ways, his miracles to perform.

Peace.

And now it is tomorrow.

 Life has a way of going on whether we like it or not.  It has been almost a week since my life was thrown into a bottomless pit, and yet the sun comes up every morning.  One day it snowed; the next the air conditioner kicked on to cool the  house.  I cooked a turkey and I burned the roaster beyond ever being useful again.  I swept the porch, but not the sidewalk.  I bought goose food.  I made coffee every morning.  Funny how the mundane works to keep us sane.

Covid 19 is still the number one story on the news, both here and abroad.  I mask up and go to the grocery only when I need something.  I wove a couple rows on my runner, washed the sheets on Jiraiya's bed and stared blankly at the television for several hours.  Life goes on.  Someday I am sure, life will again have meaning, but not right now.

If the church was open I could go set in the corner and talk this all over with God, but it is not, so I do the next best things.  I stand in my front yard early in the morning and watch the sun spread across the eastern sky.  I watch the birds shake themselves out of their stupor and rise against the sky in search of a fellow bird much as my soul rises in hope that this new day will be better.

And at night I search for the moon.  Sometimes it is full, which fills me with wonder.  Sometimes it is a crescent and sometimes it is dark, but always it is there.  As I watch it rise on the horizon, I know that some where, some how, I am not alone. I have a little trouble remembering when life was fun and I can not hear the laughter that used to live inside of me, but some how I know it is still there.

My hand reaches for the phone and then stops in mid air.  The number is dying in my head even as my hand retracts.  That part of my life is over.  It is over, but it is not forgotten.  It will live every day in my heart and someday, there will be a big harvest moon.  It will be a beautiful orange and it will make me smile.  And then, as now, the moon will enter a new phase and I will only see the outline of a cresent against a black sky.  

And maybe someday, I will smile again.

Today is Thanksgiving Day.

 Oxymoron is defined in the dictionary as a figure of speech that seemingly contradicts, such as  "cruel kindness."  Today is Thanksgiving Day.  The day we give thanks for all the wonderful bounty that our creator has bestowed on us.  I am sorry.  While the turkey is in the oven as it has been for the last 79 years of my life, the bounty is not reflected in my heart.

We are in the middle of the worst pandemic of our lives.  The government leaders are begging us to isolate and stay in our homes, but the airlines are busy.  There is a festivity in the air that is completely asinine to the darkest sorrow in my heart.  Life is going on as usual in so many areas, but not here on South Road.

I have not seen my kids in over a year.  It has been longer than that since I seen my sister.  I only have one sister left. I have a few nieces and nephews that I never see and rarely hear from. A couple friends that I talk with several times a year and that is about it. The Aunts and Uncles have all faded from the horizon and I am left in the abyss that is called my life.  My life is in Colorado now.  I have friends here and I had a special friend named Anthony.

Anthony has been gone 5 days.  We had plans.  He was such a caring man.  I wish the whole world could have known the simple little soul that was Anthony.  If I have to say something I am grateful for today, it can only be that he was in my life for the time he was in my life and he touched me to the very depth of my soul. My world is a better place for him having shared a part of it.

He loved the moon.  I loved the moon.  We looked at it together, he on his side of town and me on the mesa.  We talked every day.  Sometimes it was just a touch base thing and sometimes we talked for hours.  We had different opinions about many things, but we respected each other and that made it good. I had coffee with him every Sunday after church.  It was the high point of my week.  And then he got sick.

Thanksgiving?  I think not.  I will cook the turkey, because that is what I do.  I will feed the geese, because that is what I do.  I will sleep through Jeopardy!  because that is what I do.  I will remember that Anthony would call me when the opening theme song of Jeopardy! started and tell me good night.  He knew.  He understood me and he loved his family.  He missed his family.  He told me that many times.  And now his family will miss him.  

The gentle giant is with us no more, but as sure as there is a God above and the deep blue sea below this man will live in the hearts of everyone who knew him. 

For now, Rest In Peace, knowing you are missed by so many and loved by all who knew you.

Until we meet again........

Farewell to my friends as I close another chapter.

 Sometimes God reaches down and for no reason whatsoever, picks the most beautiful flower in the garden to hold as his very own.  He holds it close to his heart and whispers, "You are mine!"  And so it was last Saturday, when he took my friend.

In life we meet many people.  Some are random and pass through leaving very little trace behind.  Some linger for a while and leave without a trace left behind.  There are also those who have spent a lifetime with us without leaving a trace behind  and then there are those who become entwined in our souls and the very fabric of our being.  Anthony was such a friend.

I do not remember how many years ago it was that I met Anthony and Annie, but they forever altered the fabric of my being.  Annie was an invalid and Anthony was her caregiver.  He had been for many years and as such had enlisted Hospice to help with respite care.  I worked for Hospice as a relief.  The first time I met Annie she was drawn to my blue eyes and if Annie was happy, Anthony was happy.  So began a friendship forged of a common need. 

This friendship continued after the passing of Annie, and continued until last Saturday when God seen my Anthony standing all alone in the garden of life.  He reached down and cradled him in his arms and with only a brief glance at me standing in the breach he put his arms around my beautiful Anthony and took him home.  And they were gone. 

We are all given our reasons for being on this earth and we sometimes know what they are and sometimes we do not.  My first obligation was to Annie.  My second to her son.  They are both with God now and I can only thank my dear savior for having had the privilege of knowing these two beautiful souls.  I am  a better person for having them touch my life.

Nobody's Cat.

 The same sun came up this morning, just like it has every day for so many years, but this time it is different.  It is an empty sun shining on an empty world.  I do not know how many people there are on this little ball we call earth, but I am sure it numbers in the billions or trillions.  That does not matter to me.  What matters is the one person who is not here.  The one person who made my world turn.  The one person who could brighten my day and give meaning to my life.  The one person who understood when I was sad and laughed when I was happy.  The one person whose hand was warm and whose eyes were bright.  The man who wrote "wash me" on my back car window.  The man who fixed my coffee with just the right amount of froth to the creamer.

When I met this man many years ago he was taking care of his invalid mother.  He was so kind to her and so solicitous of her every need that I thought he must surely have wings under his shirt.  Our first serious conversation concerned an old cat that lived on his patio.  I asked whose it was and he said "no ones" it just lived there.  

I asked him about the small crate the cat slept in. "Well, I put it there so it could get out of the weather."

How did it come to be on his porch?  Well, it followed him home from the store.  It was a kitten then and he had to pick it up several times because it was tired and lagged behind.  He did not want it to get lost.  Did it ever come in the house?  Well, sometimes because it was cold he let it sleep with him.  I thought it pretty much qualified as being his cat and when he had to have it put to sleep he cried just like it was his pet.  But he still said no.

Over the years we became friends.  We learned to understand each others idiosyncrasy's.  It was tit for tat and yang for yang.  He was an  independent man and I was an independent woman.  We were friends in a way that many people strive for and few people achieve.  I shall never stop reaching for his hand and never stop waiting for the phone to ring.

Fly free, my little friend.  God has gained a priceless treasure in his store house of love.

Covid and isolation.

 At this point in time I just want to remind everyone that the covid isolation is a very real thing.  You may think it is just a phenomenon, but it is very real.  As a society we are heat seeking missles, but now that our nation is forced into isolation we find ourselves left to our own devises and they are not always healthy or correct.  Imagine, if you will having covid, and being alone day after day in your home.  Someone may very well drop off groceries, or medicine or call for a brief visit, but you are virtually alone.  All day.  Every day.

At what point do the days start to run together and you question what day it actually is and how many days have you been alone?  I am asking everyone who reads this to pick up your phone.  Call a friend that you know is alone and let them hear the sound of another human voice.  It does not need to be a long conversation.  Just touch base.  Let them know they are not alone.  You never know when you may be the one brief glimpse across the abyss of a very lonely person.  Just to know that there is another person out there is sometimes all it takes.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that anyone wants to be totally alone for days on end. If they want to be alone they can ignore the ringing phone, but do not make that choice for them.  Give them the chance.  I am sure you all know someone who could use a short hello how are you.  

Covid will be with us for a very long time and we all need to take care of each other even if it is just a short hello.  Do it for yourself.  Do it for your neighbor.  Do it for the hell of it!  The life you save may be your own.

And now it is over.

 

All the bluster and hype and worry and wonder is behind us.  For all the cries of sabotage and cheating still echoing in the wind,  all the votes are now now counted and entered in the book.   There is a winner and there is a loser.  It always happens that way, doesn't it?  The red people worked hard and the blue people worked hard, and Kanye West had his moment of fame.  Now in 3 short months we will have a new president.  We have a shot at doing it right this time.  This happens every 4 years, with one difference.

I can not say that I will miss the Donald, because I never liked him in the first place.  I always thought he was a charlatan who padded the payrolls of his kids with "stay busy work" in the white house.  But this is not about that either because if I were in his position, I would help my kids in the same way. His wife just pretty much stayed out of the way unless he needed her to decorate his arm.  This is about the Democratic Party and the part they play in the government.

(I must interject here that I think my cat is a democrat.  Right now she is laying half on the keyboard and half on my lap.  This makes it very hard to type, but it is where she chooses to be and will bite me if I try to move her.  That's how Democrats are; they do not like change.)

See, Democrats are pretty laid back and do not really want to make waves.  As a whole we are peace loving souls and have the live and let live attitude. If we have a President who just leaves us alone, lets us be at peace, we are good to go.  We believe in equal rights for everyone. We do not want anyone to go hungry and everyone should have a bed at night where they are safe.  An honest days pay for an honest days work. Peace and love and seeing a doctor when the body malfunctions is good.  If my husband is woman, that is my business.  Climate change is real.  The earth is a global community and we are all responsible to care for mother earth.  Sadly, Donald Trump did not understand that!

He began to slowly whittle away at our world.  Other countries  leaders began to pull away.  Environmental laws were lifted.  Russia was our friend.  There is an old saying, "No man is an island unto himself."  That is very true and as the man lost his grip on reality he pushed us further into a corner.  We woke up to the fact that we would soon be right back where we started. And thus began the forming of the Big Blue Wave!

It has long been known that Democrats are lackadaisical in voting and tend to support whoever is popular at the time.  But when push comes to shove and we are threatened with our rights and privileges being lost, we come out of our caves and suburbs and bond together in a way that makes a difference and when we come together with Republicans who know that their leader is not interested in the well being of America, we are unstoppable.  The days of Jim Crow are over.  The days of flying the confederate flag are over.  The days of our sons and daughters being shamed for who the love are over.  And Donald Trump can sue and count votes the rest of his life, but America has spoken!

I do not think Joe Biden really wanted to be President, but we needed a leader and he was experienced under the Great Barak Obama!  So he was it.  His choice of Kamala Harris further solidified the deal.  That woman is perfect in that she covers all the race and gender cards and more than that is a caring compassionate human being.  The fact that she is drop dead gorgeous is an added bonus.

So peace to all.  In a few short months Joe and Kamala will smile and wave to us from the front door of the white house and if there is a God, soon the Rose Garden will be restored.  In the mean time, I will sleep better at night knowing compassion will soon be restored to our land.

Opinions are just like a--holes; everyone has one.

 and most of them stink!  I just turned off the news.  I have turned everything off and it will stay that way the rest of the day.  Today is election day.  Normally I am all a twitter and anxious to see who will rule over me for the next four years, but this year is different.  For most of my life I was a registered Independent and mostly voted Republican.  That all changed way back when Amendment 2 was up for adoption in the state of Colorado.

Normally when I see the words "Shall there be an amendment to the constitution...." it incites something in me to say yes.  Not so with this one.  A yes vote basically removed any protections that my gay friends were allowed to enjoy.  It cleared the way for open discrimination against them for job security, rental of a place to live, marriage and any protection in anything and everything that you and I take for granted.  In order for my fiends to have any basic protection for anything, I had to vote "no."  Sadly there were a lot of people who voted yes and some of them knew what they were voting at the time.  To make a long story short, it passed with a very strong yes vote.  To make it even shorter, we went to the supreme court and it was declared unconstitutional and we all lived happily ever after. (Well, not really, but at least that part was removed.)

But so began my journey into the arena of politics and the need to have my vote mean something.  Today when some one brings up politics, my first question is "Are you registered and do you vote?" If the answer is "No, because my one vote will not make a difference", then we have the talk about one drop of rain in a bucket is nothing, but 6 million drops will flood your ass!"  You register your car.  You register (hopefully ) your gun.  You need to register your wants and desires with the state and federal government.

Voting, to me, is a sacred right.  With my vote I sent the first man of color to be my president.  With my vote, I overturned gay discrimination.  And with my vote I can raise or lower my taxes.   I can require that you have insurance on your car and that your dog has a license.  I can change the county, state, and federal laws.  I can put the man in the White House to rule over my country.  But if I don't vote, I am screwed!

If I don't vote I have no right to bitch about how the rest of the country voted.  So I do.  It may not be much and it may not be the man (or woman) that I wanted, but it is the one the majority of the people chose and I can live with that.  Or at least I think I can.  We will see.

I may not agree with the choices you make, but I will defend to the death your right to make them.

Peace to all.

A trip to a dark place in my past.

 It has been over 65 years since I thought of Jimmie.  He holds no significance in my life except that he was there for a brief period.  I was 17 years  old and ready for my life to begin.  I was ready for love and love seemed to be everywhere.  The years of the 16 and 17 year old Louella were all about exploration, and mostly dancing and finding someone to call my own.  Some one who would love me forever.  The boys were plentiful back then and they were just as innocent and just as eager as the girls.  Sex had not yet reared it's head on our horizon.  Oh there was the occasional stolen kiss and the fumbled attempts at "copping a feel", but that was as far as it went.  Most of the dates were "double dates", because very few of the boys had access to a car back then.

And then came Jimmie.  Jimmie was older.  Jimmie had been in the Army.  Jimmie had a car.  He was the cool boy who stood on the sidelines with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth.  It was rumored that he had a wife and son back in England.  That just added to the mystic of Jimmie.  Sadly it very soon became common knowledge that Jimmie was the love 'em and leave 'em kind.  Pretty little teenagers following him with their red eyes soon became a common sight at the record hop.  And then he looked my way!  

He took me to his house to meet his mom and sister.  He showed me a picture of his wife and son.  Looking back in retrospect, I am not sure it was anything but a picture from a magazine, but it added to the legend that was Jimmie.  He did not appear old enough to have spent a lot of time in the Army, but he said it so that made it so.  I, of course, was holding my sexual favors back in hopes of a wedding ring.  I sure did not want to be one of the sad little creatures watching him from afar.  He soon tired of me.  And as time would tell, God above smiled on me the day he broke my heart.  I had given him a picture to put on the dash of his car and he threw it out the window explaining to me that I was too immature for him.

Jimmie quit coming to the dances.  No one seen him, but we heard through the grapevine that he was working out of town and he gradually faded from our memories we all moved on.

When I married and moved out of town and began my own family, mother kept me up on all the gossip.  She sent newspaper clippings  of happenings that involved the circle of friends that she knew I hung out with.  One day there was a clipping about a nurse who lived in a trailer outside of town with her husband and two small children.  Someone had come to her trailer while her husband was at work and killed her two children and thrown them into the field.  He then raped her.  He did not kill her.  They had a lead as to his identity.  It was Jimmie.

I am sure people back home remember the headlines.  I do not remember all the details of the trial, but he was definitely the same Jimmie I knew and he was definitely guilty.  I could google it and find out, but I do not care.  I only know how lucky my friends and I were that we had all dated him and we were all alright.  This just goes to show that mother was right about another thing.  She always said "You never know anyone, you only know OF  them.  You know what they let you see."

That happened 65 years ago and I read about it at some point in time, but God in his wisdom left me untouched.  Not just me, but many of my friends.  This is something I have not thought about for many, many years, but today I thank God for bringing me through a lot of valleys to this wonderful life I now live in Pueblo. Colorado!

Brings me to this song which pretty much says it all.  Unanswered Prayers

That is an arachnid.

 And when I start screaming and clawing at the front of your shirt and trying to crawl on top of your head, it is called arachnophobia.   And yes it is a very real mental condition, and yes it can be controlled.  Death of the human suffering this condition will cure it, pretty much. How do I know it is real?  Stick with me here for just a bit.

Now, many of you know me.  You know that I fear nothing.  I have walked through the very fires of hell and came out the other side smiling.  Now that might be an exaggeration, but I have seen my scary things in life and for the most part been unaffected.  I can see a snake slithering into the goose house and still manage to go in and do my chores.  The only snakes I kill are the ones who get aggressive with me and that only happened the one time.   (Course that can also be said for a few husbands who were not smart enough to know when to stop.)

When I came to Colorado I was married to a guy named Charlie and he had a son who was pretty much grown.  Of course, they wanted to show me the high spots of Colorado and one of them is Beulah.  Since we had a two door car and they were both big, Susie and I were in the back seat when we were coming down from Beulah.  Suddenly Charlie pulled over and stopped.  There was a tarantula crossing the road and heading into the ditch.  When I saw the size of that thing, my eyes glazed over and purple lightening was flashing inside my head.  

Now, a note here to my friends in Kansas.  These things are BIG!  I swear to God that one had to be a foot across!  It had teeth!  It was looking at me in the back seat.  It wanted to eat me.  When David started to open the door to "get it and take it home for a pet" my world went suddenly black.  I shit you not!  I had both of those guys by the collar and raised up out of the seat.  At that point they decided they really did not need a spider for a pet.  I still have flashbacks when I think of that day.

Years passed and I never encountered another spider of that size until I married Kenneth.  One evening  after supper Jackie and Jim walked into our house.  Jimmy carried a paper cup and had something to show me.  I knew!  Instinct kicked in and I told him not to do it, but being the California boy he was, he was proud of his catch and wanted to show me.  When he dumped that spider out on my table, I lost all sense of reason.  The next thing I clearly remember is him begging me to forgive him.  Here to tell you right now he is still on thin ice.  Ask him about it.  Today we can look back and laugh, but that took a year or so.

And now I do not even think about tarantulas, unless something kicks in and triggers me.  Hiking at the reservoir the other day was a challenge to me because it is breeding season and they are migrating to the breeding grounds.  Oh, dear God!  My hiking partner was quick to tell me that  if we saw one he would not catch it and he understood I would not like  a closer look.  And no he would not kill it just because it wanted to go in the bushes and have a little spider fun.  Watching for rattlesnakes was not an issue, but the thought of beady eyed spiders became one!  Luckily the man did not have to witness my descent into total paranoia!

So there you have it.  The worst things I had to contend with in Kansas were millipedes.  They are about an inch or so long and have millions of legs.  They scurry up the wall and then hide so you can not kill them.  The spiders are mostly granddaddy long legs.  Couse the Black Widow likes to build a web in your basement window and hatch out her babies.  The Black Widows with babies are always females because they eat their husband after sex.   Preying Mantis females eat their husbands head off after sex.  Gives a whole new meaning to "losing your head over a woman!"

So, now you have learned a new word, arachnophobia, and a little lesson on the sex life of those innocent looking little insects that inhabit our earth.  Just remember this:

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!

Peace!

Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

With age comes wisdom, or so I hear.  Mother used to say that and I do believe there is some truth to it.  Maybe it isn't so much that we are wiser now, but that we have just come to think of all the crap we digest as inevitable.  

Of all the things I have lost, I miss my mind the most.  Now that one is sad but true!  I do know that with age comes wisdom.  I also know that is a crock if ever I heard one.  With age comes wrinkles!  With age comes a mind that is full of wisdom and no markers on how to retrieve any of that knowledge.  It is having friends and the constant struggle to remember who they are and how to get in touch with them.  It is slowing down on stairs and knowing I am always just one stair step away from the nursing home.  Old age sucks, it really does but I guess it is better then the alternative which is dying young.  Or so I hear.

This picture of my mother sets on the shelf right above my head.  She is always with me and sometimes I can hear her goading me.  She had a very wry and twisted sense of humor and I do believe I inherited that.  Now whether that is a good thing or not , I am not able to say.  I do know when I am sad she talks to me and when I am happy her little red cheeks show signs of a smile.  I am not sure I ever heard my mother laugh.  I like to think she did and her and I shared a lot of the same values, except for that Rush Limbaugh stuff.  I did subscribe to his newletter and paid for it to be delivered to her house, but that was about the length of that.  Below her picture is  a snippet of my sisters.  Sadly there are only two of us left, another of the hazards of growing old.  The good part though is that Donna is the only one that can dispute the memory of mama and she is 400 miles away.  Mama always loved me most!!!

This is the last picture I see when I go out my front door.  The lower left corner  is mama with her favorite child (ME).  The right corner is mama 50 years old.  And of course in the back is the mama I remember after I moved to Colorado. 

I like to think of my mama.  I loved her very much.  I am not sure she was ever proud of me.  If she was she never said it out loud to me.  I do know she liked my cooking.  When she came for a visit she carried a list in her pocket of what she wanted me to cook for her.  Tomato Soup made with fresh canned tomatoes from my garden...NOT Campbells.  Cream puffs.  Liver and onions.  Cinnamon rolls.  Fried potatoes.  She wanted to set in my rocker and watch the Hummingbirds.  She liked to stand at the island where my stove is and question every move I made in the meal preparation and was quick to tell me that was not the way she did it, but she was the first one to the table and the last one to leave.

Do we ever grow old enough that we do not miss our mommy?   I think not.  I guess I do have the satisfaction of knowing that someday my kids will remember me fondly.  Want to know how I know this?  I made the remark one time about a person who had disappointed me.  And she told me that one about not knowing someone. "You never really know anyone, you only know of them; the part they let you see."  The old Indians used to say, "Do not judge a man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins."  I remember lots of things.  I remember the time my sister came home from a date with her dress on wrong side out.

October has started.  Today is October 6 and yesterday was my brothers birthday.  In 24 days it will be the anniversary of his death.  He was 28 when he was killed in a car wreck.  He left behind 2 sons.  I never knew them.  Mom did.  Or at least she knew the older one.  His name was David Payne Andersen (I think).  The other one was Edward Howell Hamby (I think).  The important thing here is that October is probably the hardest month of the year for me.  October is the birth month of 2 of my kids as well as the anniversary of the day I married their father.  

Just bear with me here, because this too shall pass.  The sun will come out tomorrow!  Tomorrow is another day.  At least we have that to look forward to.  Or do we?

Three legged pot and the best thing to come from corn.

 I was watching PBS yesterday and I forget the guys name, but he was back in Pennsylvania or some where in an Amish community about heritage or something.  (Try to remember that you are dealing with someone who checks the date 45 times a day to just be sure it is actually today!)  Any way, the center of the courtyard in this community was a 3 legged kettle.  I think I have written on that before, but just in case I will sum it up again.  

The 3 legged kettle is a big cast iron pot (for lack of a better word) that set in the back yard near the water source, which in our case was a hand pump.  Water for washing clothes was heated by building a fire around the bottom.  Course it took a while to heat, but back then the laundry was an all day job.  Wash the clothes, rinse the clothes, second rinse the clothes and then hang them on the clothes line to dry and hope the birds did not poop on them.  Our clothes line was in back of the house as was most peoples.  That led to the old adage, "Don't air your dirty laundry!"  The same kettle was used to "scald a hog " when it was butchering time.  

Dammit!  I digress!  This lesson was about making hominy.  Mother used to make hominy so I was familiar with the process, sort of anyway.  First the field corn had to be completely dry.  It was then "shucked" which in this instance is removing the dried kernels from the cob. Of course, the cobs were saved for use in the "outhouse" which is a whole 'nuther blog.  Just be aware that the cobs that were red were the softest in case you ever need to know!

The loose kernels were put in the pot of water with the fire burning underneath.  This was an all day job and as it cooked it needed to be stirred regularly.  A very long wooden paddle was used for this.  As it cooked it swelled.  Dry corn takes a long time to cook with a simmering fire outside.  As it simmered it released the hard core of the corn.  After due time mother added lye which raised the water temperature higher than any fire would raise it.  We continued to stir, but at this time we needed to skim off the hard stuff that was coming out of the corn.  The important thing to remember at this time was not to let any water touch our skin because it would burn us bad.  While the lye back then was made from the soft gray ash of hard wood, usually hickory, it was still caustic.  

Fresh water was added and we now used a sort of dipper with only tiny holes so when we scooped we got water along with debris.  When at long last the water was clear the corn, which was now soft and fat was dipped out and put in the center of a large piece of cheese cloth.  This was hung on the clothes line to hang in the sun until it was dry.  I am assuming that from there it went to the root cellar.  I do not remember.  I do think that a some point it was also dried and made into grits.  Grits are ground hominy.  I only like yellow grits.  (My friend Sherman only liked white grits, but that is another story.)

Looking back, it sure seemed like an awful lot of work for very little product, but that was the whole point of life back then.  We worked all summer to fill the root cellar with stuff to keep us alive through the winter.  Sweet potatoes were a staple because they kept better than white potatoes.  And Apples!  My God it seemed like everyone in the world blessed us with apples in the fall.  Apples kept well in the root cellar and we had them all winter!  Fresh apples, fried apples, baked apples, stuffed apples, apple pie, apple sauce! But the best apple of all was my mother!  She was the apple of my eye!  (Little humor there!)

So bid the farmstead fare thee well for now.  I think that is an old German saying.  Instead of saying goodbye, Grandma always said "fare thee well" which means " good wishes to you at parting." 

Peace and prosperity to you all and may you never have to cook your dried up corn again!

3:31 AM Before the crack of dawn.

 For those of you out there who do not know me, know this:

This is the declaration of Independence.  It is probably  the most important document ever to be drafted, written, and signed by our founding fathers.   It was handwritten.  It was not typed out on a computer with the spelling checked by a spell check program.  It was written with a nib dipped in ink on parchment paper.  It is preserved in the national archives.  It was important then and it is important now. 

Ruth Bader Ginsberg understood this and she died while defending it. It is the document on which all of our rights and obligations are spelled out in simple English.  It was signed in handwritten signatures by the founders of our country.  You can read their names.  It was signed by the 56 men of the congress.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness.” 

I have not read the entire document in many years, and do not intend to do so at this point.  What I do know is this:  Our government was set up as an "all people are created equal with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  It was not set up for me to pay homage to a President and a congress led by a moron and sanctioned by religious zealots who point fingers at anyone who does not approve of their drivel.

I am old and hopefully I will just drop dead one of these days and not have to worry about it.  It saddens me that I had a nest full of kids and the best I can leave them is a country filled with strife, discontent, and a dollar that is worth about six cents.

Free speech?  Does that exist?  Sleeping with the enemy was once a movie, but now the country we feared most, Russia, is cozied up with the one man who should be protecting us.  I could go on and on, but I am going to go fix my son's lunch, because that is the one thing I can do at 4 o'clock in the morning.  

I am loving this pandemic!

 It suddenly dawned on me that this pandemic could not have come at a better time!  My whole life has been spent socializing in one way or another, but now I am forced to stay home alone and I gotta' tell you, I am loving this shit and I am going to tell you why.  It is an election year and our country is in the shitter and we are going to vote.  

It used to be the election was just a contest and the man who promised us the most usually walked away with the prize, but this year is different.  I have set here for the last 3 years and 9 months and watched a "business man" run this country like he runs his businesses.  Sadly, most of his businesses are teetering on bankruptcy, he is facing rape charges, nepotism is rampant in the white house, and if that were not enough, his wife had the Rose Garden ripped out and replaced with sod so said president could hold a rally on the front lawn of the white house.  Every country in the world has turned its back on us with the exception of Russia.  Putin is loving us.  We are a laughing stock in the eyes of the world and this does not seem to bother the upper echelon!

The confederate flag seems to be a symbol of pride.  Nancy Pelosi is a joke.  Ruth Bader Ginsberg tried to out live him and failed.  Old people are the butt of jokes and women are being sterilized on the southern border.  The government operates as an independent arm of something that we keep pouring money into with no hope of ever getting anything back.  The saddest part of all is that "my friends" can not see what is happening.  The Russian Government handed Donald Trump the last election and if you think it can not happen again, you are sadly mistaken.  

My friend, Nancy, who has since gone to her reward had a picture of Union Avenue taken at a rally 13 years ago for Barack  Obama.    There were people every where.  It was a picture of unity and happy faces.  There was hope in peoples eyes.  It was followed by 8 years of hope, unity, fellowship and a feeling of living in the greatest country on earth.  Check out our last 4 years.  If you can look at that period and tell me you are better off now, then I am the fool!

I do not visit my Republican friends any more.  I have dealings with them, but not on a social basis.  If circumstances arise where I have to deal with them, it is just in and out and do not throw that orange haired bully in my face and try to convince me that he gives a big rats ass about any of us. Sad that it has to be that way, but it is.  I find any number of reasons to avoid human contact with all but a chosen few.  

Today is Sunday.  Our church is closed.  I have not attended church since last March.  Supposedly we will meet the first Sunday in October.  We will see.  In the interim, I will just set here and wonder what day it is since I have no benchmark.  And I will watch the news and I will curse trump and all his cult following for what has become the most violent time in my memory.  I lived through school integration, demonstrations during Vietnam conflict, but this time there is no hiding from it.  Our government is out of control and headed for a collapse like none we have ever seen.  And you want to know the saddest part?

When this is all over and the smoke has cleared away, this will be the darkest time in American history.  This "regime" will go down as the one that bankrupted America, caused the most derision, and it was all orchestrated by a morally bankrupt business man supported by religious organizations marching in the name of God and financed by the NRA under the banner of the confederate flag.

And with that, I bid you adieu and like I  used to say when I was interviewing a job applicant, "Don't call me, I'll call you!"

My mother was a Republican.

 Mother was born a Republican.  I am sure she died a Republican and I am willing to bet that every vote she cast in her life was for a Republican whether it be for county clerk of Reno County or President of the United States of America.  She followed in the footsteps of every Haas that went before her.  Sadly, I am not sure she could have lived with our current government.  I could be wrong.  In hindsight she may not have been the kind caring woman that raised me.  Even as I type these words, I am ridden with guilt, so I feel I need to expound on my feelings.  Let me go back in time here.

I moved to Colorado in the early part of 1970's.  I used to make 3 or four trips back home every year to keep in touch.  Thanksgiving was usually spent with mom.  Usually the kids were dropped off in Lakin, Kansas with their dad.  Now when I travel alone, I like to listen to the radio.  Back then I did not have a tape player, which later morphed into a CD player.  It was radio only.  It was on one of these trips that I lost the music station and was introduced to Rush Limbaugh.  I know there are people out there who listen to him or he would not be on constantly.  Being a liberal, I found him both repulsive and ludicrous, so it was with a feeling of disbelief that I walked into my mothers house to find her glued to the radio listening to Rush Limbaugh!  With trepidation I asked her what she was thinking even listening to such drivel.  

It was at this point in my life that my mother explained to me that the damn liberals needed to be stopped and that Rush Limbaugh was the voice of all her beliefs.  Until that moment, I had not given a lot of thought to the two party system that compromised our government.  I just knew I liked Ike.  I liked Truman.  I liked the man who had come on the radio when I was very young to announce that the war was over.  I did not understand that we operated under a two party system and that my beliefs were in direct conflict with my mother. 

As time passed I supported Jane Fonda and rallied to end the Vietnam war, although it was never called a war!  I did subscribe to Rush Limbaugh newsletter and had it delivered to my mother because that was what she wanted.  Integration was not discussed because our opinions differed so radically.  Abortion.  Welfare.  Watergate.  There was no discussion of anything political with mother.  She had Rush Limbaugh in her corner and that was that.  I am sure that the day she died, she read her Rush Limbaugh newsletter and I do know that when they sent me the renewal notice, I did not pay it.  My Republican mother was no longer a slave to Rush Limbaugh and his drivel.  For that I was grateful.

Now here I set all these many years later, still thinking about political parties.  I have assuaged my conscience with the idea that the Republican party that my mother, my grandmother and great grandmother adhered to so closely is not the same Republican party that exists today.  I can not look at the man who holds sway in the greatest house of all time and hurls edicts to crush the down trodden even further is really in charge.  I can not believe that my friends who identify with that party will actually vote to keep him in charge.  I can not think that my mother would have put an x in front of his name had she known the devastation he would cause.  

Ruth Bader Ginsberg stood between him and totally bringing the downfall of all our work.  I can only pray that a miracle will transpire and someone with half a brain will stand in the breach between us and total antihalation.  

I am an optimist.  I love my fellow man regardless of the color of skin, religious affiliation, political party preference, status of their bank account, or any of that other drivel.  I am just like Will Rogers who once said, "I never met a man I didn't like."  (I think Mae West often quoted him on that one!)  I will always look for the silver lining and hope springs eternal in my bosom, but today was about mother and she raised me.  They say the fruit does not fall too far from the tree, and I believe that to be true!  I hate to think that at this late day in my life I will trade in my Liberal Democratic walking shoes, so I have to alter my thoughts of my mother.

I am sure she would have remained a Republican after her last breathe of life, but I am thinking she may have mellowed a little and realized that there is a fox in the chicken house.

Rest in Peace my mother!  There is a glimmer of hope on my horizon.

Cory Gardner? I think not.

 Looking back over my voting history it has come to my attention that I may very well be a Republican!  While I am a registered Democrat, I say this because I have voted for a lot of Republicans.  Ronald Reagan, the two Bushes.  I was too young to vote for Eisehhower.  On the state level, I voted for Cory Gardner.  Actually met him several years back and conversed with him briefly about the railroad from La Junta to here and up the front range.  This man turned out to be one of my biggest disappointments to date.  Why?  Let me tell you.

I have had several occasions to want to voice my opinion on something that is coming up for a vote.  "Call Gardner's office and make your wishes known."  That is simple enough.  He has a recording you can leave your message on, but that gives me little room for talking points.  Have you tried to contact him?  That is what is known as an exercise in futility.  I can leave my phone number all day long and there is not one shred of hope that there will ever be a human voice contact me.

Several years ago we began carrying a cardboard cut out of Cary and we called it "Cardboard Cary" because we did not see him.  It was a full size image of him and it looked just like him standing and waving.  He appears in several pictures in my scrapbook with his "Clint Eastwood smile and Robert Redford eyes."  He was always a "no show" at any rally we had because he was never around.  He likes to take vacations and I am thinking he should be given more time to do just that.

So election time is coming up and we will be voting by mail as we have done for many years.  I am not involved like I used to be, but I do vote.  I am happy with the mail in ballots and secure when I drop mine down the slot into the steel box behind the building at 8th and Main.  Bo Ortiz will gather up my ballot and count it.  I trust the mail in ballots more than the one where we used to vote at a ballot box.  While I do miss the actual voting place and the people who ran it, that is just a personal preference.  Mail in is more secure and I have time to actually study my ballot.  

So, I have not paid much attention to the candidates, but I have made up my mind that I am voting for who ever is running against Gardner.  Well actually, I would vote for Godzilla.  This year it is a straight shot down the Democratic side.  Trump and his Mitch McConnell puppets have soured me on the Republican Party.  I am very sad at the state our our country is in today and the ballot box is the only way to change that!

So rest assured, I am voting a straight Democratic ticket this year. I do not feel good about this, but I have seen what having the Republicans in complete control has done to my United States of America.  And contrary to popular opinion, it is still my country.  "My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty."

Never forget that! 

Cursive? What is that?

 I woke up this morning remembering the first grade at Nickerson Elementary School.  It was a big two story red brick building just one block down from where Main Street ended.  Why is it that 72 years later I can still remember the buildings in Nickerson, Kansas, but I can not remember what I needed from the grocery store? I think there were 3 or 4 sandstone steps that led up to the double doors that opened into the first floor.  The first floor held the first 4 grades as well as the kitchen where Mrs. Ritchie cooked the meat and potatoes that was the staple noon meal for the kids who could afford to pay for meals.  The little Bartholomew kids carried a sack lunch which was eaten at the other end of the long lunch table.  It was sort of like the lunch counters at Woolsworth where the "blacks" were not allowed to set at all back in the days of segregation.  Kind of funny how some things in life never really leave our psyche.  But I digress.

I was 5 years old when I walked into the hallowed halls of learning.  The first thing I learned was that my coat went on a hook on the wall and not just any hook.  We were assigned a hook in alphabetical order according to our last name.  Which brought us to our first lesson we would learn....the alphabet!  Across the front of the class room was a giant blackboard.  Above the blackboard was mounted the alphabet.  Directly below each letter was a picture that we should associate with that letter.  A a Apple apple.  Bb Boy boy.  Cc Cat cat.  You get the drift.

I can remember how my little mind hungered to learn all the letters.  All 26 of them.  At 5 years of age I somehow knew that if I could learn those letters and if I could learn to count, that the world would be my oyster!  It is funny how the young mind can grasp a concept when it wants to.  Learning was the most important thing I had to do at that age and I was going to do it right!  The fact that about as soon as I mastered those block letters, I would advance to second grade and on to third where the little block letters would fade into "cursive".  The letters I had worked so hard to learn were no longer in use and now I must learn "cursive."

Learning cursive also entailed practicing making loops and swirls until they were all even and my skill at printing now became "penmanship."  I was a natural!  Cursive was much faster than printing.  It looked better.  My mind was now free and unencumbered by the restraints of printing.  I loved to write and to me the greatest gift in the world was a blank tablet and a pencil.  I was enthralled and the love of writing never left me.  For many years it was buried under the guise of motherhood and the need to work to survive.  (Love of alcohol also interfered in that time period.)  But time marches on.

Penmanship became a thing of the past at some point.  I am not sure when that happened, but I was having coffee with my Republican friend in Kansas when he told me he would like me to come to Topeka and write thank you notes for him because I had beautiful handwriting!  While I was flattered at the compliment, I was stunned to learn that schools were no longer teaching "cursive".  I actually thought he was bullshitting me, but he wasn't.  

Since I was am longer in the loop of school age children I do not know what the status of cursive vs printing is.  Maybe someone out there can tell me.  We are in the day of computers and text messages and I think the only pen and paper stuff is the grocery list I make occasionally.  I have, however, become adept at asking the question, "Can you read cursive?" when asked for my address.  Usually I am met with a blank stare.  How sad is that!

I guess I will go google it!  I have a box of stuff from my mother in the closet.  Uncle Ray and mother corresponded regularly and it was always in cursive.  It is sad to think that I should actually throw that stuff on a fire, because no one will be able to read it.  

Bret just came up and I asked him if he can read cursive.  His answer was " I can, but it is confusing."  During our brief discourse  he made this statement:  "It is sad that cursive has been lost, because with the loss of cursive goes the loss of a language.  The Declaration of Independence and all the old documents are written in cursive, so they can not be read in the original form."  

So let me drink a cup of kindness now to the little red brick school house that no longer exists and to the teachers that taught me how to write my name and put my thoughts on paper.  They have faded into posterity, but never from my mind.

Mrs. Breece, Mrs. Wate, Miss Holmes, Mrs. Howe, Miss Swenson, Miss Lauver, Mr. Schrieber, and Mr. Bolinger.  You will live forever in the hallowed halls of my mind.

I guess God don't want me!

 For the last 25 or 30 years I have been in church every Sunday morning.  For many years I went to the Christ Congregational Church in Belmont until the politics of that church and the powers that controlled the church no longer meshed with my beliefs.  When I left there I went across town to the historic First Congregational Church on Evans.  The one in Belmont had been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and was progressive while the one on Evans was built in 1868 with red sandstone from Beulah.  It is on the national register so it is very historic as is the organ that pumped out music every Sunday.  Ken Joyal plays it and is accompanied by Becky on the piano and Karen and Jerome playing violins.  I was very happy there and never missed a Sunday.  

But, alas, those days are behind me!  In March our church closed the doors to let the pandemic work it's way out.  They closed for just a month or so.  Let me see; March, April, May, June, July, August.....and holding.  Sadly, the church has not opened.  They broadcast a service once a week and hold "virtual communion" and "zoom" meetings, but that does not cut it for me!

I want to set in the pew.  I want to hold the hymnal in my hand.  I want to sing with other people doing the same thing, but it is not happening.  So here is the deal; I am searching for a church.....

And here is what I want.  I want a preacher in the pulpit who will give me a sermon about love, compassion, good deeds and a God that will welcome me, a sinner, into his heaven.  I want a congregation that will welcome me and validate my worth.  In return, I will be there every Sunday.  I will tithe, just like the Bible says to do. 

I want a smaller church.  I am not into mega churches.  I want a liberal church that is open and affirming of all races, and gay friendly.  I do not want to be judged and I will not judge you.  Maybe we can have coffee after, maybe not.  I want to support the homeless.  I guess I am looking for a church the Jesus would go to in his tattered robe and slippers.

If you attend a church you think I would like and you would accept me, contact me through this blog down at the bottom.  

I would love to hear from you! 

My friend pool tends to be dwindling!

 I am on facebook.  A couple days ago I was notified of a friend who was having a birthday, so I clicked on the "wish her the best" button and sent her a happy birthday wish.  Yesterday I got a message from her daughter that she had passed away 4 months ago.  Of course I had been meaning to call her.  Mother always said "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."  And of course momma was right.  

So in my inimitable way, I looked for someone else to blame for my neglect of my friend.  Blame it on Covid.  Blame it on my having a 4 year old to take care of while his daddy works.  Blame it on the Pueblo Chieftain for raising the price of a subscription so high that I can not afford the paper and thus can not read the obituaries.  

Darn!  It seemed that only last week I had seen her at Walgreens and we talked about lunch.  Her step daughter and I were friends.  But as I set here thinking back, I do not know the last time I seen her!  It was not this summer, or last summer.  Maybe 3 summers ago.  Nope! Longer than that.  She does not know Bret has a son and that son is now almost 5 years old!  Damn!  I am not sure she even knew about Sherman and he passed in 2012!

A lot of my problem is this damned pandemic!  I could always keep track of time because I attended church every Sunday and that started my week.  My church has been closed since March, so there is no longer a start to my week.  The days just run together.  Monday and Tuesday are Bret's days off, so if he is hanging around the house during the day, I know it is Monday or Tuesday.  After that it is all down hill.  I may have to actually go find a church that will let me in just so I know what day it is.

Now I am setting here realizing that I am suddenly old. My life is marked by milestones.  There is the period before Kenny.  That is anything prior to 1980.  Then there is life after Kenny.  That is 2003.  And there is life now.  Not sure it is very much to write about, but it is what it is.  I tend to spend a lot of time just wondering where this is all going to end.  Hopefully I will just wake up dead some morning and my ride will be over.  This is going to surprise a lot of my kids who are harboring the idea that I will live forever!  And every morning that I open my eyes and look over at that clock that continues to mark the hours and minutes of my life, I am amazed.  Mainly I am amazed that I have managed to spend this many hours, days and years on this little green and blue ball without sending it spiraling off course.  But then I am not done yet, am I?

A friend sent me, completely out of the blue, a gift the other day.  It came in the mail and when I opened it I was pleased to find a beautiful  purple tee shirt.  I love purple!  And this was the perfect shade!  I called him when I got it and before I opened it.  I had a little trouble grasping what it said on the front in big white letters, but reflecting back, I realized that he had summed up my life with these words: 

UNDERESTIMATE ME

That'll Be Fun

So, thanks, Ross Barnhart, for reminding me that there are still people out there who care and think about each other.  I like to think that some day our lives will go back to normal and that we will be able to meet for lunch or pop in Starbucks for coffee.  It is sad that this year had to happen, but maybe it will wake us all up.  Maybe I will start calling people and checking on them.

Or not. 

The gift of forgetfulness.

 Of all the gifts the Lord has given me, I think that not remembering some things is the best gift of all!  I woke up this morning remembering the Stroh place in Nickerson.  The incident was mostly clear in my mind.  I recall a big yellow cat.  I do not recall his name, but he was the resident mouser.  Some times I think I  petted him.  I can recall him rubbing on my legs.  I started school when I was five, and it was summer so I had to be about 4 years old.

This particular day, we were setting on the back step.  It was hot.  Nickerson in summer was always hot.  The big yellow cat came walking across the back yard and into the yard.  In his mouth he carried a newly hatched baby chicken.  He dropped this at my mothers feet.  Now if you know about cats, this was an honor.  This meant that the cat realized mother could not hunt and he brought her the baby chick to feed her.  He loved her.

But mother did not appreciate the gesture at all!  Looking back, I can understand what was going through her mind.  She loved that old cat; we all did.  But this small chicken would have grown into a hen or rooster and made more chickens.  If it was a rooster, it would have ended up as Sunday dinner.  If it was a hen it would have laid eggs which were a staple in every day life either as a source of income or the binder in pancakes or baked goods.  Then it would have ended up as a big pot of chicken and noodles.  Either way, the big yellow tom cat had thwarted Mother's plan.

I recall the sadness in her eyes as she turned to my brother Jake.  My four year old mind does not recall the exact words, but the words do not matter.  He was told to take the Tomcat into the forest out back and "get rid of it."  My beloved cat was no longer a pet.  He was now an "it".  Jake would have been 8 since he and I were born 4 years and 4 days apart.  He went into the house and returned with his single shot rifle.  He always carried a big pocket knife because boys always carried a pocket knife so they could whittle.  Jake could whittle a whistle that was the best whistle in the world.  Boys don't do that anymore.

He picked up the big Tomcat and walked slowly from the back yard, across the barn yard, past the  chicken house and disappeared into the woods out back.  I waited for the shot.  I never heard it.  Mother and baby Donna went inside.  I waited.  A four year old girl has no concept of time.  There is nothing to measure it against until you learn how to count time on the clock on the wall.  I do know mother went inside and I waited for what seemed an eternity.  I finally seen Jake emerge from behind the chicken house.  He was alone.  I could tell by his eyes that he had been crying. 

We never spoke about the incident.  In my mind he turned the big yellow tomcat loose and he found a new home.  Four year old minds can do that.  Minds can forget bad things that happen to us.  I guess it is God's way of letting us survive in a world that is not always pretty.  We do not always remember the things that hurt us and scar our very souls, but that is good.  It lets the big yellow tomcats of our life run free in the forests of life.

And it lets us sleep at night. 

The heart of the home is this table right here!

As a young girl back in Nickerson, I recall doing my homework at the dining room table with a coal oil lamp to light my books.  Now you should know that the "dining room table" was the only table that we had and the room we had it in was between the kitchen and the "front room."  The front room was the first room in the house.  Next was the dining room and then the kitchen/wash room/library/what ever else we needed it to be.  On Saturday nights that is where we all took turns taking a bath in a tin tub.  

There were 2 other rooms in the house and they were both bedrooms.  Now back then bedrooms were exactly that!  Mother had the smallest room which held one bed and she slept there with the 2 youngest girls.  The front bedroom had 2 beds, one of which was my fathers.  The rest of us girls slept in the other bed.  Jake was relegated to the floor.  But this is not about where we slept, this is about the dining room table.

We had electricity, but we rarely ever used it, because we were afraid we would wear it out.  The table was a round oak table much like the one I have in my dining room today.  I am sure the chairs were wooden because we could not afford one of those fancy chrome sets that everyone coveted.  There was a green wooden table in the kitchen, but that was for holding pots and pans and such. 

We ate at the dining room table.  We did our homework at the dining room table.  If someone dropped by they were seated at the dining room table.  Usually we sipped on a glass of water from the well.  The icebox was in the dining room by the door to mother's bedroom.  Once a week the iceman came.  We had a sign that was in our front window.  It was similar to the one in the lower right corner.  The iceman would pick up the size block we wanted with his ice tongs and carry it inside and place it in the icebox.  The money was always left on top of the icebox.  A new block of ice was always a treat because it was so clear and square.  We used to follow the ice wagon on hot days as cool our feet in the water that came off his melting load.  I digress!

  

I tend to get off subject.  The point is that the dining room table was the heart of the home and life has not changed that much.  Kenny and I had not been married very long when we decided we needed a new table.  We went down on Union and found an antique round oak table that suited us perfectly.  Since he was working in Denver we went to the oak furniture store and purchased 6 straight backed chairs and we were in business.

Shortly after that, my mother came for her first visit.  She lived in Hutchinson, Kansas and as I recall she rode the train to LaJunta where I picked her up and brought her home.  She was very happy to see the round oak table and the 6 oak chairs.  She set down and started to reminisce.

"This is the heart of the home.  It is here that everyone gets together to eat and it is where all important decisions are made.  It is here that the family comes together.  It is here that company visits.  This table is where happiness and sadness are always discussed."  And she was right.

When someone comes to my house, even today, we set at the table.  The couch and recliners are only used to watch television.  The heart of the home I grew up in was always the table and it still is today.  Whether it is dinner for 20 people or a cup of tea with a friend, it all happens at the table.  I have a breakfast bar with stools that are never used.  I have an office, but I pay my bills and do my correspondence at the table.  Mail is put on the table.  It is the center of my existence.

My mother has been gone many, many years, but the table will always be where I see her most.  She used to set at that table and work her crossword puzzles.  I can not work a crossword any where but there.  I miss my mother every day of my life.  It never gets better.  Someone asked me once, "How long do you mourn when someone dies?'

My answer to that is "forever."  How could you ever forget the woman who gave you life?  Things come and go, but mothers and dining room tables are forever.  I have pictures of my mother and Kenneth's mother beside my front door.  They are the last thing I see when I leave and the first thing I see when I close the door when I return.

I realize that someday, I will no longer be here.  No doubt there will be an auction and the dining room table will go to a new home, but that is alright, because I will be at the big table across the great divide with my Mother and all my grandma's and there will be a giant table that has room for all of us.

Kinda looking forward to that!

Do people die in the doctors waiting room?

Good morning!  As usual I woke up with something on my mind that I am most happy to share with you.  Today it was time ill spent in a specialists office waiting room.  This was probably 4 years ago since I was referred there by my friend John, who has now been deceased almost 2 years.  I had an incident about 5 years ago where I actually went to my primary care doctor because I thought I had a needle in my foot.  He of course scoffed at me,  but since I was insistent, he sent me for an xray.  When he came back clear he dismissed it as my active imagination.  In hindsight, I should have been more insistent, but I wasn't.  Maybe it was my imagination.

So, after due time and the pain was still in my foot, I learned to ignore it.  Then one morning I noticed that my second toe was a tiny bit shorter then my big toe.  I thought that was weird, but therein again was my active imagination.  It kept getting shorter and I could no longer ignore the "needle in my foot pain" so I called my primary and told him I needed a referral to a foot doctor.  Since John had an amputation I asked for a referral to his doctor that he thought highly of as a very qualified doctor.  So, I called that office.  Sadly, his doctor was not taking new patients, but his colleague was.  The appointment was made.

The office was downtown and the day arrived.  Being the anal retentive person I am, I arrived early. With the paperwork done,  I set back to wait.  After about 45 minutes I was called and sent back to x-ray.  That took probably 3 minutes.  Back in the waiting room I looked for a magazine I had not already seen.  I looked at the walls.  Time finally passed and I was called back into the office of Doctor "I-walk-on-water."  He handed me a pair of arch supports and told me I had a "morton's neuroma."  When I asked him why he did not even look at the x-ray, he told me he did not need to because it was classic and the x-ray, which he would look at later, would confirm his diagnosis. He added that the arch supports would take care of the problem.  They cost $90 which my insurance, of course , did not pay.  He also gave me a prescription for some sort of pill that would clear "it" up.  And we made an appointment for 30 days.  Three hours and I finally had an answer and saw my car waiting for me.  Good car.

I came straight home and googled Morton's Neuroma.  "First manifests as a feeling of a needle in the foot between the 3rd and 4th toe."  Bingo!  Treatment called for was the prescription for the pill I now had in my possession.  So, I started my regimen of pill taking and waited for my next appointment.

If I thought the first appointment was slow, I was in for a real treat on the next one.  I arrived early, as usual, paid my $50 co-pay and set back to wait.  This time I was ready and had brought my crocheting and a book I was reading.  Should have brought a pillow!  After one hour I approached the desk.  The waiting room had completely emptied and a whole new bunch of people filled the space.  I was told that doctor would see me very soon.  The waiting room emptied again.  By this time I was beginning to feel like an unwanted step child at a family reunion.  I approached the desk a second time.  The third time the waiting room emptied and refilled, I lost my patience.  I demanded my $50 co-pay back and left.  So much for referrals from friends.

The next time I have a health problem, which is rarely if ever, I will first google it to find the treatment.  Then I will self medicate with herbs from the friendly Natural Health Foods or Amazon and keep my money at home.

So, here I set with 2 feet that have the second toe shorter.  I have learned a lot about this condition the last few years and I have this advice for anyone who is unlucky enough to think they have stepped on a needle.  Google it.  Tell your doctor what it is.  Get a cortizone shot in the bottom of your foot before it is too late. 

I expect that some day I will either have to have something done about it or die of old age.  I am betting on the latter!

Stupid or eternally optimistic?

My mother always told me that one sign of stupidity was doing the same thing over and over in the same way and expecting a different result.  I would like to go on record as saying she may have been right about that.  Now I do not like the word "stupidity", but I do not know a better word for that action.  Oh, I know!  I can call it "eternally optimistic!"  That sounds a whole lot better, now doesn't it?

My neighbors goats are eternally optimistic.  They are the ones  that will not stay home and like to come graze on my bushes.  Every morning they are in my yard, usually in the car port.  I hit the panic button on the car and all four of them go into a dead panic trying to run over each other getting away from the car.  They then stand in the drive way looking dumbfounded and wondering where that sound came from .  Seeing nothing, they then wander into another neighbors yard to graze on her grass.

Soon the eternally optimistic neighbors (now awakened by my car alarm blasting) wander out to herd the goats back into the pen.  They actually have 3 different pens, none of which will hold an animal prisoner.  And yet each time they close the gate, they think the goats are secured.  I have actually watched them stand in the middle of the pen and look around.  Were I so inclined I could go over and show them the gaping holes they walk through, but I am not.  It is easier for me to honk the horn, knowing that the goats will never figure it out.

I suppose that in my journey from puberty to old age I have done a few stupid things, but rest assured there was only one real stupid thing that I did over and over in the same way expecting different results.  That was my habit of marrying men who were addicted to alcohol and expecting them to work and take care of me.  It was not until I met Kenny that I realized I really had something to offer a man besides my paycheck.  And we lived happily ever after.

Now I realize I probably could go buy a roll of fencing, take it over next door and show them how to build a fence, but I am not going to do that.  If I still had the nice lawn I had years ago and the beautiful rose bushes I took such good care of, it might be different, but I don't.  So I will set here and hit the panic button and watch the eternally optimistic goats wonder what is going on and the eternally optimistic neighbors herd them back into the semblance of a pen.

Life sucks.

2014-07-28

If you are watching this on your cell phone, you need to click on the date that appears.  The picture does not always work like you think.


I did not realize that I made this video 6 years ago.  This is the stations of the cross in San Luis.  The dog in the picture joined me at the bottom of the walk and stayed with me all the way up and all the way down.  Two years ago I met my son in Taos, New Mexico.  When I came back, I drove the back way and came out in San Luis.  I stopped on the edge of town to take a picture of the chapel up on the hill.  When I stepped out of the car, I was greeted by a big dog which stood by me while I took pictures.  I can not help but wonder if the dog was the embodiment of some one I had known before.

Maybe when my friend, Irene comes this year, her and I can go visit this.  Her mom lived in this area and I think the one shot I have of the field down the side is where Annie grew up.  Small world, huh?

Willie, Woolsworth, and the Blue Waltz Perfume.

Probably, the second "real love" of my life after Corky, the dancing fool, was a guy named Willie.  Back in those days, newspapers required a "typesetter" and that was what Willie did.  It did not require much expertise, but I was just as proud of him as if I had good sense.  Work was a necessary evil back in those days.  No work, no pay, no money for beer and beer was very important back then.

Willie was not a handsome man.  He was not tall.  He was not overly bright, but he loved me, so I of course loved him.  He was a short, stocky little bundle of muscles who was feared by all.  His reddish hair gave him a temper, or so they said.  Seems he liked to fight and when someone likes to do something they are usually very good at it.  It was rumored that he might be a little off in the head, but who cared?  Not me, that was for sure. 

Willie and I never had an actual physical relationship, but I loved him anyway.  In Hutchinson, back in the day, it was expected that anyone with a car would be dragging Main on Friday and Saturday night.  That was what you did.  You started on Sherman and Main and drove North to 30th, circled back to Sherman.  Bumper to bumper.  If you were cool, you parked and laid on the hood of your vehicle and watched.  Not sure being cool had as much to do with it as just not having anything else to do.

Willie did not have a car, but his friend Jimmie did.  Jimmie also had a wife waiting at home and a couple kids, but that was cool.  Jimmie was a family man and would have to leave us early.  We then walked home.  Since I lived on West A  Jimmie would drop us there, and Willie would then walk to his house which was on the East end of Sherman.

Back in the day we had 2 stores called "five and dimes."  They were precursors to Family Dollar, Dollar General and stores like that.  Variety stores and you could find about anything you needed within their walls.  The first was Kresses and the other was Woolsworth.  I had asked Willie once what his favorite perfume was and he told me it was "Blue Waltz".  The only place it was sold was at Kress, so the first spare nickle I had, I set off to purchase the elixir that would make Willie mine.

Blue Waltz Perfume came in a little heart shaped bottle that was about an inch and a half tall and a  little over an inch wide. The bottle was clear, but the perfume, as I recall was a very light tan.  It had a fragrance like none other.  It was actually a very light, cloying smell, for want of a better word.   I do not know what that word means, but it sure fit that perfume!  I dabbed it behind my ears, in my hair, and any place else my finger happened to find. 

Now it is only fair to tell you at this point that I do not remember what ever happened between Willie and I all those years ago, but suffice it to say, it could not have been anything too important or I would have remembered.  What I do recall is the Blue Waltz Perfume and I can close my eyes and see that little bottle.  I am sure I bought it for a nickle and only used it when I was seeing Willie and that is all I remember.  It was not long after that I met Duane, and Willie was history.  The Blue Waltz Perfume was not nearly as popular with Duane as it was with Willie so it set on the shelf forgotten. 

I do think about that tiny little bottle from time to time and wonder what ever became of Willie.  I am sure he sobered up and married someone, and maybe had a couple kids.  They would have been cute little burgers with his red hair and blue eyes.  But maybe not.  I had kids of my own and never once thought about naming one of them Willie. 

It is kind of funny how life works.  Willie and the Blue Waltz perfume were a small part of my circle of life, but here I am sixty some years later and the clearest memory of that part of my life is not Willie, or the dragging Main, or anything else.  The undying love was out the window and the vision I see when I close my eyes is that of a tiny glass bottle with the words "Blue Waltz Perfume"  in tiny letters across the front of the bottle.

Funny how that works.